Photo: Mike Babnick

What's New

December, 2007

Trinidadcolorado.net has recently had a major upgrade. Aside from general spiffing up, most of the changes are "under the hood", to make things faster and more stable. But if you're a sponsor, there are several new features you should know about:

The Sponsor Control Panel now has nicer and more intuitive interface.

New Optional Gallery Styles. In addition to or normal "classic" galleries, there are now two new gallery styles for those who don't have time to put together a "classic" gallery or don't really have content for one:

1. Single-page gallery. Instead of the default framed gallery, this just the company information page.
2. Your website. If you have an external website, that can appear in the frame where your "classic" gallery would otherwise be. This has no effect on your website—it just makes it accessible from Trinidadcolorado.net.

You can easily switch between styles at will in the Sponsor Control Panel without delay or data loss. Play with them and see which one works best for you.

Simple Gallery URL's. Your gallery now has an Internet address that is simple enough to tell people on the phone or print on business cards. Our old, ugly gallery url's looked like this: "http://www.trinidadcolorado.net/gallery/frame.php?id=22&type=realestate". The new, simple ones are just "http://www.trinidadcolorado.net/galleries/yourname".

Log into the Control Panel to see what your gallery url currently is. If you'd like something other than what we chose for you, let us know and we'll fix it.

The old style url's still work, so your old bookmarks will still work too.

Turn Gallery Visiblity On or Off. You can now work on your gallery without the changes going public until you're ready. Use the new "Activation" checkbox in your Control Panel. When it is checked, your gallery (and links to it) are visible to the world, when it's unchecked, they are not.

If you currently have a working Gallery, we've already checked the box for you. If you don't, your Gallery is ready and waiting for you. All you need to do is add some content and check the "Activation" box.

Note: If you have an active Gallery and decide to de-activate while you make changes, your current work will not be lost.

Contact Buttons in Galleries. Visitors can now click a button on your Gallery pages to contact you via email. They have an option (checked by default) to add themselves to your mailing list (see below). If they do so, the web server, in adddtiton to sending you the message, automatically adds the visitor's name and email address to the newsletter subscriber list in your control panel.

In your control panel, you can choose to display Contact Buttons on all pages, just the company information page, or not at all. You can also create the custom text that accompanies the button.

Email Newsletters. You can use your Control Panel to easily send email newsletters to your mailing list of subscribers. Visitors can subscribe themselves automatically via the Contact Buttons described above, and you can add your own customers and propects from within the Control Panel.

It's up to you whether or not you choose to use this feature, but it's simple to use and a powerful marketing tool. We suggest you give it a try.

Borders on Gallery Images. By default the Images in your gallery have a thin border around them. Normally this is a good thing, but if your images already have borders, or perhaps a drop shadow, they just get in the way. You can now choose whether or not you want your images displayed with borders in your Control Panel.

Sponsor Calendar Events. As a sponsor, you can now add any events you want (including things like a commercial sales event) to the Community Calendar. They appear instantly (no need to wait for moderator approval) and have special formatting so they really stand out.

Sponsor Classifieds As a sponsor, you can now place ads that appear instantly (no need to wait for moderator approval) and they appear in a featured position and format. Your Control Panel has a list of your currently running ads, and you can control their duration.

Colorado Land and Properties   Griego Insurance   Pioneer Motor Inc.   R. Michael Babnick Photography   Southern Colorado Realty   Trinidad Free Cycle   Trinidad Graphics   WYVRN CSTGS, LLC  

Questions? Ideas? Comments? Offers of help?
Site Administrator: steve@trinidadcolorado.net
Sales and Sponsor Support: (719) 845-1424 or steve@trinidadcolorado.net